Saints of the Shadow Bible

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‘Where are we going?’

‘We’re just driving.’

‘Driving where, though?’

Rebus turned to look at his passenger. The man’s name was Peter Meikle. He had served almost half his adult life in various Scottish and English prisons and had the pallor and bearing common to ex-cons. His face needed a shave and his sunken eyes were black, wary pinholes. Rebus had picked him up from outside a betting shop on Clerk Street. A few sets of lights and they were heading past the Commonwealth Pool and into Holyrood Park.

‘It’s been a while,’ Rebus said. ‘What are you up to these days?’

‘Nothing you lot need worry about.’

‘Do I look worried?’

‘You look the same way you did when you laid me out in 1989.’

‘That far back?’ Rebus made show of shaking his head in surprise. ‘But be fair, Peter, you were resisting arrest — and you had a temper on you.’

‘You’re saying you didn’t?’ When Rebus made no answer, Meikle resumed staring through the windscreen. The Saab was on Queen’s Drive now, skirting the cliff-like Salisbury Crags on the approach to St Margaret’s Loch. A few tourists were trying to feed bread to the ducks and swans, though a troop of swooping gulls seemed to be winning more than its fair share. Rebus was signalling right, beginning the climb that would snake around Arthur’s Seat. They passed joggers and walkers, the city vanishing from view.

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